As anyone who's been out here will know, you can't go to New Zealand without going to Waitomo and there's no point going to Waitomo unless you're going to see some glowworms. So we've just spent the last 24hrs in this little place a few hours west of Rotorua and have returned from an epic 4hr+ underground adventure that saw us rappel 30 metres down into a cave, spend a few hours exploring on foot but more excitingly on rubber rings - 'black water rafting' down the freezing rapids (often in complete darkness) and finishing off with climbing out of the 30 metre hole you dropped yourself in in the first place. The pic you see is of the intrepid caving team staring in bewildered awe at the gloworms - all except for the American tourist on the left who preferred to give a big smile for the camera...some people just don't listen.
It was awesome stuff and the gloworms themselves were a sight to behold - literally millions of them lighting up the cavern...akin to staring into a starry sky. And for those that care, glowworms aren't actually worms but the larval stage of the fungus gnat. The glow they give off is merely to attract bugs and other prey that they feed off. Interesting huh?
Pre and post our cave expedition, the word of the day was 'shearing'. On our way out of Rotorua we visited the Agrodome where they run a very touristy but undeniably fun show of the sheep of NZ incorporating shearing, feeding and some dog herding tricks. To add to that in Waitomo we then visited the 'Shearing shed' - home to some 300 angora rabits - one of which gets its massive locks sheared daily.
We headed from Waitomo and have just spent a day on the Coromandel Peninsula where we found the hot water beach (very cool - dig a hole and have your own thermaly heated bath) and Cathedral Cove...a very secluded bay with some cool rock formations. As the NZ leg of this trip nears an end we've decided to spend our last few days in the Bay of Islands where its waaaaaaarm. Will post a final update from there before we depart for Thailand.
2 comments:
OOooh Glowing worms! Yum.
If you like glowing things, you'll have to come to my neck of the woods at the end of the summer and check out all the fireflies that dance over the rice fields!
There's a very strong animal theme to this trip isn't there?
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